


The Promise

by HereticWithaPen



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Ben Solo Pain Train, F/M, Heavy Angst, Nothing but sorrow, Redeemed Ben Solo, Romance, Suicide, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 17:09:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13345725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HereticWithaPen/pseuds/HereticWithaPen
Summary: When Rey and Ben are captured and forced to fight in a battle royale, Ben makes the ultimate sacrifice.





	The Promise

**Author's Note:**

> Pure sorrow, set sometime after The Last Jedi. For maximum sadness, listen to "Across the Stars" while you read. 
> 
> *Self-harm warning*

 

 _Keep fighting_ , Rey ordered herself. _You have to keep... fighting!_

She swung her lightsaber at the agile Devaronian warrior across from her with almost feral aggression — a holdover from her days as a Jakku scavenger. Still, her strike missed. _Damn!_

The red-fleshed creature hissed and lashed out with his pair of matching daggers, nearly slicing Rey open at the naval. She dodged, and bit back tears of frustration. She didn’t know how much longer she could keep this up.

They had come so far, and yet—

The First Order had turned on Kylo first. Although from Hux’s perspective, Kylo had betrayed the Order for the most foolish of reasons: love. Love for _the girl._

Hux had it all wrong.

Kylo didn’t betray them, because Kylo Ren was gone — struck down for good by the person the universe had always meant for him to be — Ben Solo.

And it was with Ben Solo that Rey fell in love.

Ben had come to her, ready to start his life over, and she’d implored the Resistance to let her help him. But they forbade it, and when Rey refused to turn Ben away, they had banished her. They would rather destroy what they hated than allow her to save what she loved. That was unacceptable.

So they fled, with no one to turn to but each other, all because they had fallen in love. The abandonment by the Resistance left a wound in Rey that ran deep, one that would likely never heal, but they had survived. She and Ben still had the one thing they truly needed — each other.

They were close — so close — to finally finding happiness, but that had all changed one fateful night in Mos Eisley. A pirate gang had ambushed them while they slept, captured them, and sold them into captivity.

The universe was cruel like that. Rey knew of its severity all too well. It was crueler still when they were thrust into a battle royale and made to fight. Their lives, thrown away for the entertainment of others.

Still, Rey held onto a glimmer of hope as she and Ben fought back to back, one opponent after the next. They would get out of this together. They had to.

One hundred souls numbered the vast battlefield at the start, and ninety-seven fell.

With a guttural roar, Rey brought her iridescent green lightsaber down upon the ninety-eighth, felling their last foe. The Devaronian’s body crumpled to the ground.

Rey sank to her knees, following him down. Her arms ached, her bones were weary, but now without their opponents, she knew that, somehow, she and Ben could turn their fury on their captors and escape.

Breathing hard, she rose to her feet and turned to face Ben. Her wide brown eyes were filled with sorrow at what they’d been made to do, but that all turned to fear when she saw him.

Ben stood some ten paces away from her, lightsaber in hand. Except now, it was turned off.

It was the pain on his face, the tremble to his lower lip, that frightened her. She recognized it, the same pleading look he’d worn in Snoke’s throne room when he’d whispered his most desperate plea. “Please.”

“Ben, what are you doing?” she cautioned, taking a slow step toward him.

“Only one of us can walk out of here,” he said, voice heavy. “And I know what I have to do. I’m— I’m sorry.”

“Ben—” All of a sudden, she realized what he was about to do. Rey threw out her arms and lunged toward him, but — _gods!_ — she wasn’t fast enough.

With a practiced hand, Ben turned the hilt on himself and pressed the point from which the saber emanated over his heart. “I love you,” he said.

Rey’s scream tore through the death-filled air, and the world seemed to slow as the volatile red blade ignited, piercing everything she loved. She didn’t see the corpses that lay around them or hear the roar of the audience in the stadium — all she saw, all she heard was Ben.

He shuddered with pain and a soft gasp escaped his throat, leaving blood spattered on his lips. He never thought he’d die this way, but if it meant saving Rey— his lips turned up in a soft smile — well, he could be okay with that. He only wished they’d had more time…

Agony burned through Rey’s chest as though it had been her heart that was torn apart. She ran to Ben and fell to her knees, catching his head as he sank to the ground. The lightsaber, its light snuffed out once again, rolled from his hand and lay still in the dust.

Tears fell upon the thick black fabric over his chest as Rey stroked his dark hair.

“No…” she choked out. _Maker, please— save him,_ her thoughts howled. “Ben, why?”

He’d made mistakes in his life — a lot of them — but this decision, he knew, had been right. Ben blinked, eyes stinging with tears as her face filled his vision. He could be strong for her, but Force take him, it was getting hard to see... “Only one of us was going to get out of here alive,” he repeated. Each word struggled to escape his lips. “And I would die a thousand times before I let it be anyone but you.”

“No…” Rey was beyond words as her universe collapsed around her. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t _FAIR_ —

Her shaking fingertips reached toward Ben’s fatal wound, as though she could heal him with a touch. But his steady hand intercepted hers, clutching it tightly to his chest and interweaving his fingers with hers.

The mournful smile that crossed his face was that of a fallen angel, too sensitive for this harsh world. He had only seconds left, he could tell, but he didn’t feel fear. Just a sad reluctance to go.

“It was you, Rey— it was always you.” His words took on a dreamlike tone, as though he were speaking to her not on that bloody battlefield, but in some impossible place where only the two of them existed. “You’re free, Rey.”

“I don’t want to be free without you,” Rey cried between gasping sobs. Tears blurred her vision. She clutched his face desperately, searching his eyes with her own, more terrified than she’d ever been in her life that she’d see the light leave them. “ _Please_ , don’t leave me.”

Ben reached up and touched her face weakly, the strength already leaving his hands, as a tear carved a line across his pale, handsome cheek. “I’ll be with you, always…” he whispered. “I promise."


End file.
